This is how we bought our last car. We test drove, I investigated the current value via Edmunds, etc.
I called back a few days later and ask to speak to the same sales person. I told the individual we would like to purchase the car we test drove. We are serious, we can pay cash (check, credit card, bank check if they wait after the weekend). I then gave them a price I was willing to pay. I said something along the lines of “Don’t be offended, and you can laugh into the phone and I won’t get offended either. Go check with which ever manager you need to check with and call me back. You treated us well so I called you first. If I don’t hear from you in a couple days I will start checking with other dealers.” I was polite but firm. Make it clear that I was a serious buyer not wanting to waste his time or mine.
The sales person called back in less than 15 minutes and tried to sell me on the wheel lock and mud flaps on the car. I politely said to take them off. The dealer ended up only taking off the mud flaps and not charging us for the wheel locks. I drove in to do the rest of the paper work. So the negotiating took 15 minutes (five if you only count the time we spoke to each other), but the delivery process took over two hours!
It was the most stress free negotiating experience I’ve had. I think are the keys are:
1) Understand what the market for your purchase is
2) Making it clear that I was serious, sales people are afraid that you’re haggling just to waste their time. Make it a professional negotiation and not a personal vendetta.
3) Negotiate from my position of strength rather than the dealer’s. When you negotiate at the dealer you see the car you want, they have ways to stall you, to get different managers to talk to you and wear you down. After all they sell and negotiate for a living. By calling from home, the dealer has to convince me to come in, plus I enhance my strengths of time and having the money.
We purchased with cash, so I am not sure how well this works if you need to do a loan, probably requires that you have financing lined up ahead of time. Negotiate price over the phone and negotiate rates over the phone as well before going in.
Did I leave a few hundred dollars on the table? Quite possibly, but how many more hours would it take for me to get to that bottom price? The time cost not to mention mental stress is not worth it for me, specially if you average that money as a percentage of the total transaction over the car’s lifetime (10 years for us, we drive our cars into the ground). Just by avoiding any add on and additional warranty you’re saving big money.
BTW I agree that buying used is a better deal, though with more people buying used now days it is probably less of a deal than say a year and a half ago. And keeping your jalopy going is the best deal of all, assuming you don’t need that “new car dependability”
